Daily Archives: January 6, 2014

Diplopundit has been running almost continuously since March 2008. It has published over 3,500 blog posts and is on track for nearly two million visits. In 2013 Diplopundit doubled the number of visits it received in 2012. Over the last two years the blog was viewed more often than it was during its first four years combined.

During its six-year run Diplopundit has exceeded the typical life span of most similar blogs by twelve times. Take that, Grim Reaper of Blogs! Some readers have been with this blog since its beginning, and we are grateful. Thank you for sticking with us all this time . . . even when we were not especially funny or when our rants went over the top. To our newer readers, welcome and we hope you are finding visits to Diplopundit worth your time. The blog tries to be timely, informative and, well, witty. It does not always succeed at that, but never for lack of trying.

As it turns out, your blogger had reached a milestone this year, too. She has counted more than a dozen strands of gray hair and discovered that she is officially old. Okay, ADEA or AARP old, but not dead. But, hey, the last time she looked in the mirror, she was, well … a babe and now, ugh! she’s not. Anyway, whenever she start obsessing about that stranger in the mirror, one of you inevitably pulls out from somewhere a white rabbit that runs around, muttering something like, “Oh dear! Oh dear! Something is happening over there!” And there we go with another chase down the hole; sometimes it’s pretty and fun, and sometimes it’s really not – especially the heartbreaking bits.

In any case, your blogger is not sure how much longer Diplopundit will be able to stay around chasing rabbits. That will depend principally on you, our readers. Your blogger has been entertaining thoughts of running off to Colorado to join the weed stampede of “potpreneurs.” Apparently, that is the greatest new business opportunity since the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, your blogger has no idea which weed is pot and which weeds are not, so — the learning curve would be pretty high. She would much rather continue to follow the goings on in international affairs and the institution of our Foreign Service. But following these interests can no longer be exclusively the chasing of a diplomatic white rabbit down a hole to learn what delightful or frightful adventures might be discovered there.

Pardon me? Oh, well, yes, she’s grown up and is now required to balance her check book and pay her bills.

On average, roughly 130,000 visitors return to this blog each year. If everyone reading this gave $1, we would not have to worry sustaining this blog and your old blogger for three years. But we all know, it’s not as simple as that.